Architects: Matyas Architects
Project: Villa Sorrento
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Photography: Courtesy of Matyas Architects
The Villa Sorrento is located on the south coast of Australia, not far from Melbourne. The special location offers the rare opportunity to establish a limitless connection between house, surrounding landscape, beach and water. The owner’s main concern was to preserve this fluent transition in the best possible way.
Through the entirely new design of the property, the architect’s office achieved the ideal balance between transparency and security, a symbiosis between affinity with nature and privacy. Towards the roadside the holiday villa is protected by a natural curtain of indigenous trees. Towards the ocean the façade opens up without restrictions thanks to the minimal windows® frameless design sliding windows and doors from KELLER AG.
The unusual villa does without frills of any kind and is made of only three materials: concrete, Corten steel and glass, which form a uniform whole in perfect interaction. The solid concrete walls and the generous processing of the Corten steel effortlessly defy the elements and promise the residents protection and security the whole year round.
The minimal windows® from KELLER AG with their slender frame profiles form a stark contrast. They offer maximum transparency and don’t let any angle of view of this unique landscape go to waste. They offer the necessary thermal comfort in winter. In summer, when the weather is fine, the large sliding doors enable the front of the house to be opened wide without effort to allow the relaxed enjoyment of nature from the protected vantage point of a “seat in a box”. The “living room” gained by this offers a great deal of additional space for relaxing and dining.
The multilayer architecture additionally enables the house to be subdivided into several residential wings without affecting the privacy of the individual sections. The property is equally well suited for a romantic holiday for two or the stay of a family of eight.
Kitchen, dining room and living room are located on the first floor of the west wing with a view over the expansive beach. On the ground floor a further large family room has been set up with a high-quality home cinema system. The east wing houses the bedrooms and guest rooms. In order to provide each resident with his or her own retreat, each of the five room units features its own walk-in wardrobes and an extensively equipped bathroom. The two wings are linked with each other by a spacious entrance area on the ground floor and a gallery on the first floor.
The large glass fronts of the two wings of the house have been set back in the façade in order to protect all the rooms from the neighbours’ view. One of the particular strengths of the frameless minimal windows® sliding windows from KELLER AG comes into play here. The narrow design frame profiles were integrated all round into the walls, ceiling and floor. This allows even more light into the room, creating a light-flooded, friendly atmosphere.
In addition, the two main wings surround the house’s own pool like a protective sheath and shield it from the prying eyes of visitors to the beach. The Corten steel façade extends on one side over the entire height of the building. The minimal windows® facade on the opposite side does the same without effort. A further window façade forms the link between the two halves of the house. Practical and generously sized living rooms with maximum incidence of light ensure a comfortable stay in a unique location.
Villa Sorrento is a holiday house that works skilfully with the strengths and weaknesses of its surroundings and gets the best out of them by placing the focus on the essentials and inviting nature and the view to the inside as a gift.
